300 330
300
November14
HEALTH&FITNESS
NOVEMBER
1
Puma Night Run,
6pm, 10K, Sentosa
2
CSC Run by the Bay,
7am, 10/15K, The Float @ Marina Bay
Singapore Airlines Charity Run,
7am, 300m/5/10K, F1 Pit Building
9
Great Eastern Women’s Run,
5.30am, 5/10/21.1K, The Float @
Marina Bay
16
Run for Hope,
7am, 3.5/10K, Promontory@ Marina Bay
23
Swissôtel Vertical Marathon,
6.30am, 73 storeys, Swissôtel the
Stamford
DECEMBER
7
Standard Chartered Marathon,
5am, 750m/10/21/42K
14
Banana Relay,
7.45am, 4K laps, Sengkang Riverside Park
28
MR25 Ultramarathon,
5 x 10K in 12 hours
JANUARY
10/11
NUS Bizad Charity Run,
5pm, 5/10K, Mochtar Riady Bldg, NUS
11
Run For Your Lives Singapore,
12 noon, 5K, West Coast Park
18
Parachute Dash,
7am
#2 Mistake: Forgetting to eat and drink
Feeling good and strong at the beginning doesn’t mean you
can be lazy about the nutrition – water, beverages and carb-
rich gels – you’d planned to take along the way. If so, you’ll
pay for it down the road.
“For the 10K race,” says Ben, “water is enough. But as the
race gets longer, calories become increasingly important.”
However, nutrition is very personal, he notes. “Though I can
drink 100Plus at other times, I’ll throw it up if I try it during a run
or a race.” So, you need to experiment during your training.
You need to find out who the race partners are, and what
they’ll be providing at the water stations.
#3 Mistake: Trying something new
Never
wear new gear. Get it a least a few weeks before, and
train in it. Run your shoes in properly before a race, or you’ll
get blisters. And runners who decide on the spur of the
moment to wear their brand-new race-day shorts or vest are
setting themselves up for chafing and raw nipples – not fun!
It’s the same with nutrition. If you seldom eat pasta, gorging
on a plate of spaghetti the night before is a bad idea. As for
breakfast, eat what you would normally eat before a heavy
training run.
#4 Mistake: Over-attachment to time goals
As soon as you set a time goal, says Ben, you set yourself up
for failure. Even worse, as soon as you tell others your time
goal, you start to do stupid things. You worry; maybe you rush
your training in the effort to set paces and reach goals; you’re
likely to become injured.
Say you set your mind on achieving a 50-minute 10K, or a
four-hour marathon. But then it’s a windy day, or you’re not
physiologically on top form that morning, or you get stuck in
a bottleneck, or the course marking is not accurate. These
things happen.
“I’ve seen people so sad and disappointed that they didn’t
achieve their goal time, and that’s a great pity,” Ben feels. His
message? Don’t worry about the outcome being “good” or
“bad”. It is what it is.
Doing the process well – sticking to the training programme,
and then executing your plan on race day – is all you can
do. If you end up doing 4:05 instead of 4:00, it means you
were physiologically incapable
on that day and in those
circumstances
of hitting 4:00. But that’s not to say that in
three months or six months or a year’s time, you won’t be
capable of doing it.
“Control what you can control, let go of what you can’t, and
the outcome will take care of itself. As long as you’ve done
your best, you can’t be disappointed. Some of the races I’m
most proud of are not necessarily the ones I’ve won, but where
I know I gave my utmost.”
journeyfitnesscompany.com